But the UK, which was doing everything possible to court Chinese business, took up the offer from Beijing to become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.9 Washington was furious.10 London had made its decision, a State Department official let it be known, without prior consultation. America did not approve the “trend toward constant accommodation of China, which is not the best way to engage a rising power.”11 But London wasn’t listening, nor were the other Europeans who promptly signed up too.
